Mayor de Blasio visiting a second-grade Spanish class at Amber Charter School in Manhattan. Getty Images

OK, Mr. Mayor, so you’re going to have to pay a price to keep control of the city’s schools. It’s not right or fair; it’s just a fact. Welcome back to Albany.

Carl Campanile’s exclusive story in Thursday’s Post lays out the reality: State Sen. Simcha Felder (D/R-Brooklyn), a key Education subcommittee chairman, says Mayor de Blasio will have to eat an increase in the cap on the number of charter schools to get mayoral control extended.

Felder also says there should be no cap at all on charters. He’s right: The cap is just a way to make the charter crowd crawl before the Legislature every few years.

But the need to renew mayoral control is a way of also making New York City’s mayor crawl. Mike Bloomberg had to do it, too.

And de Blasio’s getting off cheap: He just has to accept the continued growth of a movement that he’s needlessly declared war on — a movement, incidentally, that’s moving heaven and earth to reduce inequality in the city.

Bloomberg had to hand out fat raises to members of the United Federation of Teachers to pay for his control.

Let’s be clear: While our disagreements with de Blasio run pretty much to which foot he gets out of bed on, the city is far better off with him in charge of the public-school system than with the old Board of Education.

This way, voters at least have someone to blame.

Mayoral control should be permanent. On the other hand, there should be no charter cap, either. And everyone in Albany should legislate with the public interest first in their minds, too.

Back on Planet Earth, everyone will have to settle for less, after a few more months’ political grandstanding all around.